


the losing game

by torasame



Category: Twisted-Wonderland (Video Game)
Genre: Background Cater Diamond/Malleus Draconia, Birthday fic for a friend, Canon Compliant, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26714176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torasame/pseuds/torasame
Summary: When Trey finds love, he finds it in roses, in games, and in a boy. It isn't as simple as he is made to believe.
Relationships: Cater Diamond/Malleus Draconia, Trey Clover & Riddle Rosehearts, Trey Clover/Riddle Rosehearts
Comments: 7
Kudos: 63





	the losing game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jelley](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jelley).



> This fic is dedicated to the ever amazing Jell.  
> Thank you for your friendship, your existence, your comfort and so much more. Thank you for the conversations at questionable hours of the morning, thank you for your unending support. Thank you for listening to my ideas, for polishing them and giving me the reactions that encourage me to move forward. Thank you for proof reading my works, my essays and for your feedback. Thank you for listening when it gets too dark to see sometimes.  
> I wish you all the happiness in the world and more. You deserve so much more than this fic that I wrote in between classes and the hours leading up to midnight. You deserve love, friendship, and fulfilment and I will ensure that you receive all those one way or another. Cheers to the years to come and to more conversations, laughs and brainrot fueled clutches.  
> Thank you for everything and for the rest to come.  
> Your friend,  
> James.  
> (Song: Arcade by Duncan Laurence)

When Trey first finds love, he isn't sure what to make of it. There was no grand realization, no sunset and waves crashing on the shore, it was nothing like the few books Chen'ya had told him about. It was nothing like the movies his mother loved to watch. Some part of him thinks it's always been there, at the base of his stomach and being as young as he was, he wouldn't have put his finger on it.

When Trey first finds love, he finds it by a bush of budding roses because maybe that's what it was then— a rose not yet ready to bloom. He reaches for the petals, careful to not prod it too much. It looks like snow in his hand, like a piece of the clouds. He finds love in the hands that hesitate to reach for these flowers but whose eyes leak with the curiosity that wants so desperately to escape. Trey looks back at the bud in his hands before tugging on it's stem and removing it from its bush. He finds love looking at him in a mix of confusion and relief. He hands love the unbloomed flower but love remains, unmoving and spectating.

He leaves the rose bud atop the branch, knowing it will never grow into a rose, laying it atop its siblings who will mourn for it when he and love head back down the pavement just before the sun meets the sea.

His first love fleets along games of croquet, it sings in the rhythm games of the arcade he frequents. Love loses those games most of the time, but Trey teaches love how to win. And when love wins, it might have been the second time he falls. When love wins, the neon lights are put to shame, the music in the background is senseless and oxygen leaves him. When love wins, the world pauses for a moment.

Trey keeps much more from his second love. It leaves traces in the strawberry tarts he bakes, the roses that are slowly peaking into bloom, the books filled with words he still has trouble reading. Love leaves traces in games he chooses to play, in the tokens he spends.

And over some time, love just leaves. The curtains are drawn, the windows closed, doors locked. The black fence stretches far over his head, he cranes his neck for even a gap between the blinds— but love is nowhere to be seen.

He traces the trail that love leaves behind, the lines fade over time, he draws over time but over time, even he begins to forget where they lead. He finds love's traces in all he sees— but love is further away. He passes the rose bushes again, they aren't blooming as much as he'd thought they would. The rose bud he had plucked in what seemed to be years still remains, it's withered slightly like that of melted snow. Trey turns away, alone.

When he stops by the arcade, he lingers by the claw machine— the game love never got to play. Che'nya warns him that it is a waste of time, but it's time love never got. He stays, he plays, he fails, he runs his coins dry. He saves, he waits, he plays again and he fails. But it's borrowed time, it's time that love should have had. Chen'ya calls him insane.

He meets love again in what is left of spring. He's still taller, but love has grown quite a bit. Love is still much more refined than he is. Love is stricter now, sharper now, but love still smiles for him sometimes.

The months pass them by, and love is so much more than curious eyes and uncertainty. Love is decisive, practical, precise and meticulous. Love still reads the books he has yet to understand, awaits the roses that have yet to bloom and above all else, still loves the strawberry tarts Trey makes every so often.

But love is different now. Love is less saturated than before. At the time, Trey thinks he's starting to put his finger on it. Love becomes left abstract. Love is now a bit more certain.

Trey finds love in a boy who lives and breathes for the rules of the queen. Trey finds love in a boy who is perfect in a lot of ways, because even when he falls short he is still perfectly human. Love is the boy who keeps everyone in order, the boy who settles for nothing less than the total score and continues his reign at the top of the class.

Love is the boy who sometimes can't tell jokes apart. Who does end up laughing at the strangest anomalies. Love is the boy who tries so desperately to resist his sweet tooth. Love is the boy who flies through the air like he was born to do it. Love is the boy who is stubbornly correct. 

Love still loses most of the games he tries to play. He still doesn't know how to reach out for a rose he wants to examine and so Trey does it for him. He picks a rose, barely peeking into its bloom, a flower still white as ivory. When he hands it to love, one of its petals is stained red. Trey looks at his finger and finds the blood drawn from a thorn, but love doesn't notice. Love holds the flower in his hands, staring at the bright crimson against the snow. 

"Don't roses look better when they are red?" He isn't sure if it's addressed to him. He swipes the blood on the black of his trousers. 

"I guess they do."

"Now I understand," love gazes at him, eyes looking but drifting deeply into thought. "I understand why the Queen of Hearts would want them red. We shall do the same."

Trey finds love in the boy who paints roses. Trey finds love in a boy who can recite years of acrostic poems in verbatim but struggles to write his own. He finds love in a boy who can recite paintings, their artists, their dates and their significance— but will never be able to tell you about their colours, their emotions and their stories.

"It's a losing game," Che'nya tells him on one of their school breaks. They're back in the arcade, Trey has lost count of the amount he's on. The claw is sinking, the claw clutches, the claw misses. He moves to play again. There are no tokens left.

"You've spent it all again."

"Then it is until next time." Che'nya makes no move to follow him.

"I've never known you to be so reckless," he looks at his friend and he does not find the same carefree happiness he found so many years ago. Because it isn't as simple as it was then. "You've played your hand, chipped it all in and now you've run yourself dry."

"I don't know what you mean."

"You're addicted, Trey."

He knows he doesn’t understand what Che’nya means. He knows it’s nothing. He knows it’s just some trick, some joke that his friend is pulling to throw him off course, to tease him like he’s done so many times before. Trey tends to lose his bets with Che’nya after all, it would be a fitting argument to call his effort a  _ losing game. _

“It’s the one game you chose not to play,” Trey comments, “are you stopping me to protect your win streak?”

“The way to win a losing game is to not play at all,” Che’nya shakes his head, “you’ve lost it. You’re too far gone.”

His friend finally falls into step with him as they head out of glass doors and away from the neon lights. “I don’t think in much place to tell me that I’ve lost my marbles.”

“I don’t mean it in that way,” it’s still far too serious for Che’nya, far too direct. He’s pushing them down a path, avoiding all those strange arrows he drew, the false trails left behind. It’s uneasy, really, because Che’nya knows exactly where they are going while he doesn’t. This isn’t much of a Wonderland, either. “But you need to promise me something.”

There’s a flash of gold that flickers between them, the coin falls onto Trey’s palm. “Promise me, if you lose again you have to walk away.”

That’s where he gets him. Trey, funnily enough, figures out the odds in this situation. Then again, perhaps he has always known the odds but something dangling in this weird grey area of winning and losing kept him moving. He has to choose now, it’s the fork in the road with nothing but a divide straight down the centre. “Okay.”

“Remember it, Trey. You’re my friend and you’re much better than this.”

With that, Che’nya walks away.

He keeps the words away from his heart for as long as he can. Because Che’nya does not know of the weight he feels past the few smiles love manages to offer him. He does not know of the shadows behind desaturated eyes, tears spilled into the deep night with only the stars to lay witness.

When Trey finds love’s sadness so he bakes cakes much more often during exam season. He prepares everyone else ahead of time, he briefs them on all the rules and procedures a few minutes before love arrives on the scene. He bears all the whispers on love’s behalf, he takes on the pain love should not have to carry. He writes poems. He paints the roses red.

But it isn't enough to stop the ink from blotting. It doesn't stop the leaves from withering. It doesn't stop the glass from shattering and the dams from flooding. When the ink spills, love is at the forefront of the outburst. He shouts, but love does not hear him.

"Kids aren’t their parents’ trophies. Your parents aren’t the ones who get to decide what you’re worth," Ace yells over the swirling atmosphere. "I finally understand that you being a trashy person isn’t your mom or dad’s fault at all!"

"You’ve been in this school for a year. And the one to blame is the bastard you call a friend," he finds Trey in the midst of the chaos, piercing his soul in the eye of the hurricane, "who did nothing but turn a blind eye to your selfishness!"

Heartsbyul hangs on for dear life when love laughs in a voice that is not his own. Trey moves, past the lump in his throat, the boa constricted around his neck. Trey moves and overwrites the damage, he overwrites the fresh ink. But it's clear to him now, it's clear that he will never be able to take the pain that comes with it. 

And when the sky clears and the leaves regain their chlorophyll, love is unconscious on the bed of grass. When love wakes, he calls for Trey through tears that finally spill in the presence of the sun. Love is broken, and Trey knew. Trey found all the broken pieces and tried so desperately to become the glue that would hold them together.

"I like white roses too."

And he breaks, the pieces fall out of his hands and cut his skin. The roses are red, but they shouldn't be. Love cries for all the years he wasn't able to. 

"I'm sorry too," Trey manages, "I always knew you were suffering but I kept quiet. That's why I'll say this now." And for the first time, Trey tells love he is wrong.

They're far more honest with each other after that. Trey learns to stop baking tarts and start asking questions. Trey learns to have a shoulder to cry on, he learns how to be the person who holds love past the nightmares. He stops tracing the paths love leaves behind and instead, traces them back, picking up all the pieces and handing them back to love. Because Trey will not be the one to make him whole.

They go to the arcade together for the first time in many years. He and love spend moments on different consoles, but both know they are only drawn to one. Trey finds the token Che'nya gave him, with the words seeping from the corners of his mind and ringing in his ears. He puts it into the slot, despite love's protests. The claw moves, much slower than he remembers, it sinks, it grips and it carries. He offers love the stuffed hedgehog.

For once, there is no prior hesitation when he reaches out for it. "Mother won't let me keep toys."

"Then I can keep it safe for you," he replies instantaneously, "I can give it to you on your birthday, or unbirthday or any time you'd like to have it. Just say the word."

"Thank you, Trey."

The word is never spoken. The promise is kept. Trey understands.

He won the game. He won but yet he still lost. He's dealt all the chips, the deck has been drawn. He is the only one at the table.

He walks love back the paths he had carved, love disappears behind the black gates that aren't so tall anymore. But that's where it ends, he thinks.

Trey would have gone back in time to be each and every one of the poets, would've killed them and taken their places so that every time love is written it would be in words only love would understand. He would've used the blood to stain all the roses red.

" _ I like white roses too." _

It changes nothing because Trey finds love in a boy who does not know passion. Trey finds love in a boy who does not know the movings in his own heart, a boy who could tell you about the philosophical theory of the eight kinds of love, who could tell you it's definition word for word but will never truly understand it.

Trey finds love in a boy who will never know what it means. Trey finds it in the unbloomed flower he knows will never bloom, no matter the blood he spills, flowers will always die.

Trey has played a losing game, and he wins once, out of luck. When he walks away, Trey chooses to win conventionally. When Trey walks away, he walks alone.

(Because love has never followed him.)

* * *

Riddle asks him about love on Valentine's day, a habit he has come to accept when he finds himself lost.

"Trey, what love is celebrated today?"

Trey pauses from the batter he's stirring. "You mean, from the eight types, right?"

"That's right."

"Well, it's typically marketed as Eros and Agape. But it can be a day to celebrate any kind of love," Trey dusts the flour off his hands and turns to his friend. "It could be a day to celebrate familial love or friendships too."

Riddle's gaze is calculating.

"Is there something wrong?"

"My mother," the atmosphere drops like one of those roller coasters, though Trey doesn't remember ever reaching the peak. Or maybe he was there for a very long time. "I don't know… I can't put my finger on which love I experience with her."

Trey does not answer the obvious. There are two obvious options Riddle is weighing in his mind.  _ Philia:  _ A love that runs deep in family, and  _ Storge _ : the love between parents and children.

It's a bit too early for a school day, but they're long passed drowsiness. These early hours are not to time for constructed facades and delicately curated analogies, it's truth without any words to hide behind. It's why Riddle only has to say  _ Mania,  _ for the roller coaster to reach its descent.

_ Mania:  _ obsessive love. The only one of the eight meant to be avoided.

The emotions he finds in Riddle's expression draw into the boundaries of sadness, epiphany and many more that are far too indistinguishable. It's not as simple as it was back then, they're older now, jaded and a bit cracked with the sunlight seeping through to reveal parts of their souls in the glass. 

"It's a bit funny," Riddle says without a trace of humour, "the two options we're both thinking about reflect on our relationship as well."

Despite the lack of it, Trey laughs. "That's true." He hasn't thought of it in a while, it's growing faded in his mind eye, but he thinks it's nice that love finally has a name.

"Pardon me, I'll be off now."

"Are you heading to the library?"

"Yes, there's a topic I'd like to read about. I'll see you later, Trey."

* * *

The roses have bloomed, Trey leaves them be. He makes cakes for his dorm since it is an all boys school, after all. It wouldn't hurt to add a little domesticity to even out the raging hormones. He doesn't find Riddle for the rest of the day.

He makes some strawberry starts, though he's gotten a lot better at figuring out problems at their root. He thinks Riddle still needs to boost after the epiphany he shared with him that morning. It was the reason why he found him wide awake before the sun, after all. But it's not as though Trey can talk.

He's been doing his own categorizing, straightening out his own definitions. He thinks he has it in order now. It doesn't move past  _ Storge  _ and  _ Philia,  _ but he's alright with that now. He spends the rest of time after classes playing card games with Cater, Ace and Deuce. They're snacking on the cheesecakes in the common room, with laughter spread between hand slaps and loud cries of "bullshit!"

It lasts until Cater not so subtly excuses himself. Ace and Deuce are still trying to work out what Trey himself had confirmed in a very awkward conversation at an unholy hour of the morning. He knows Cater will not in fact head to the courtyard, but instead head for Diasmonia to find a certain heir who he may or may not have seen lingering about without Lilia's company.

"Freezer." Cater whips around comically. Trey sighs, "freezer? You wouldn't want them to melt."

Cater looks as though he wants to praise him and murder him. There really should be a term for these things.

The group disperses, Trey settles for reading in his room. He stumbles on the hedgehog plushie on his quest for a novel he hadn't had the chance of picking up. He makes it through about a quarter of the book when there is a knock on his door.

"Riddle?"

"Hello, sorry I was caught up with some work—"

"No no it's alright. I'm glad you're here," He jumps from his bed and moves to gather the container on his desk. "I hadn't finished it this morning but here, I didn't make as much since you'd probably get diabetes but I hope you like it."

"Trey—"

"Oh and," he reaches for the medium sized plushie he set bedside his book. "Happy unbirthday?"

Riddle accepts both tokens, he holds the container in one hand and the plushie is tucked underneath his arm. It's quite an amusing sight. 

"I," Riddle starts, "I have something I'd like to give you as well. It's not much but," he hands him an envelope with his free hand. It's clean white except for the seal which bleeds crimson in the shape of a rose. "I've… I've never really written my own letters before, especially for this sort of occasion as well. So I consulted Lilia as to what I should write."

Trey delicately cuts beneath the seal with his fingers, he opens the letter.

"Lilia told me what to write about what I felt. And I know I'm not the most emotionally articulate so please bear with me—"

The page is blank save for one word on the corner where a sentence was meant to be created. But any more words would have taken everything away. No, this one word. This expression. It's enough to leave Trey's ears ringing with the sound of his punctuated heartbeat.

_ Agape. _

It's his third encounter with love, but this time, love finds him. When Trey meets love, for the third and what he hopes will be the final time, it's in a name. It's with certainty. It's when the roses have bloomed, when the game is lost but life continues. It's Riddle looking at him, standing in front of him, with hesitation blown into the wind with curiosity on full, unshielded display.

It's not as simple, but for that moment it is. It's as simple as love. As agape. It's nothing like the movies, there is no grand realization. No rushing into each other's arms in grace. It's awkward smiles and laughter. It's something with a name, but something he hasn't entirely figured out yet. But he'll learn. They'll learn.

They'll watch the roses bloom, watch the poets be put to shame. Because when the cards are dealt, the flowers wither and the pieces fall apart, they will find love. They will find each other.

**Author's Note:**

> The terminology is heavily based off a quote from "This is How You Lose the Time War" which is a very poetic short read. I'm not very well versed in Twisted Wonderland as of the moment so I hope my research has done the characters justice. Again, wishing Jell an amazing birthday through this amalgamation of Triddle brainrot.  
> Again, song associations. I will pretend to overlook the fact that a lot of my music taste falls under Eurovision. To be fair, there are a handful of great songs and Arcade is definitely one of them so go give it a listen if you haven't already.  
> I'll do my best to verse up more and maybe publish a couple of fics for TWST. Maybe I'll do a vilrook one soon.  
> Anyways, continue to stay safe and take care of yourselves. Have a good one.


End file.
